Standings

The graphics next to each team are called “sparklines.” They depict each team’s performance over the last month. Each “up” bar is a victory and a “down” bar is a loss. There are horizontal lines for home games and gray bars represent games decided by two runs or less. “PWins” is short for Projected Wins, based on each team’s Run Differential, and is often a better measure of a team’s true strength.

Game of the Day

Alex Rodriguez showed skeptics that he can indeed be a clutch hitter with a two-run homer in the 12th inning, rallying the New York Yankees to a 4-3 victory over the Atlanta Braves. Marcus Giles had put Atlanta ahead with a solo shot in the top half.

Jorge Sosa (2-10) walked Jason Giambi with one out. Rodriguez, in a 2-for-20 slump, then drove a 3-1 pitch way over the left-field fence for his 16th home run. Most of the game was a pitching duel between John Smoltz and Chien-Ming Wang.

Yesterday’s Home Runs

The following stats are provided by Hit Tracker, which logs the projected distance of each home run (if it were to land uninterrupted at field level) and its “standard” distance, which is corrected for weather conditions.

Player News

Ryan Howard hit two homers to take the major league lead with 27. He was 2-for-3 with two RBI in the game.

Juan Pierre went 2-for-5 with a homer. Pierre had gone 643 at-bats without a homer — his previous one came on July 7, 2005, against the Brewers. It was the second-longest homerless streak in the majors behind Houston’s Willy Taveras, who hasn’t homered in 657 at-bats.

Derrek Lee’s first homer in almost three months came at the best possible time for the reeling Chicago Cubs. His long, two-run shot into the left-field bleachers tied the score in the eighth inning, and the Cubs scored three more runs to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 6-3.

Joe Mauer went 2-for-3 with a walk to improve his major league-best batting average to .392. He went 11-for-13 in the three-game sweep and had hits in eight consecutive at-bats before grounding out in the second inning. He is batting .484 (46-for-95) in June.

Milwaukee reliever Matt Wise was hoping to pitch soon after being unavailable for two games following a freak accident. Wise got a cut on the middle finger of his right hand when he reached into a bowl Sunday and caught his finger on salad tongs. “I was going after a salad,” Wise said.

The Giants recalled first baseman Lance Niekro from Triple-A Fresno on Wednesday. Niekro had been on a rehab assignment and hit two home runs earlier in the day for the Grizzlies.

The Giants scratched right fielder Moises Alou from the starting lineup Wednesday night, then quickly placed him on the disabled list with strained lower back. The move is retroactive to June 18.

The commissioner’s office suspended San Diego Padres catcher Josh Bard one game for his aggressive actions during a game against Seattle on Sunday. Bard was ejected Sunday by plate umpire Paul Nauert after taking a called third strike in a 9-4 loss to the Mariners. After being tossed, Bard argued with Nauert and pointed his bat at the umpire’s face. The catcher had to be restrained by third base coach Glenn Hoffman.

Dan Uggla pinch hit in the ninth inning and grounded out to third on Wednesday against Tampa Bay. He had missed the last seven games with a hamstring injury.

Michael Barrett’s 10-game suspension for punching A.J. Pierzynski ends Friday just in time for the Cubs’ catcher to play in what promises to be an emotionally charged rematch with the White Sox. “I just reacted,” Barrett said Wednesday, looking back on his punch that set off a brawl May 20. “Like I said, I’m not happy about what happened. … You know we all make mistakes, we all do things that certainly when you look back on, hindsight is 20-20. But it’s time to move on and play baseball.”

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Brett Myers was placed on the temporary inactive list Wednesday and optioned to Class-A Clearwater, one day after asking for a leave of absence following his arrest on charges of hitting his wife in the face.

The Phillies called up right-hander Adam Bernero from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said Bernero will start Friday in Toronto. “I don’t know much about him, but that I saw him pitch last year in Atlanta,” Manuel said.

With a doubleheader Wednesday and Brett Myers on leave until, the Phillies are hoping Jon Lieber (strained groin) could return to start Sunday in Toronto, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Randy Wolf (elbow, hand) has a hairline fracture in his hand after being hit by a liner in his rehab assignment, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

RHP Matt Belisle was activated off the 15-day DL after recovering from a strained back. He could get a chance to pitch in a set-up role in Cincinnati’s struggling bullpen.

THT Stats

Stolen bases are good, getting caught stealing is bad. As a general rule of thumb, getting caught stealing is about twice as bad as stealing a base, which means that normal stolen base totals or even stolen base percentages aren’t the best way to judge a basestealer.

Here’s a good method for ranking basestealers: Net stolen bases, or stolen bases minus 2 times caught stealing. Corey Patterson and Ichiro are the league leaders in this category; in fact, I didn’t realize just how outstanding Patterson has been on the bases this year. I’ve expanded the list to include anyone with at least three net stolen bases so that you can see how certain players (Scott Podsednik is one example) can be overrated by simple stolen base counts.